Unwanted or harassing telephone calls have been a nuisance for the public for many years generating many police complaints. This is especially true for unwanted calls to women. But, at the same time important calls must be answered promptly, so the public should not be held captive by the unwanted calls. Also, in recent years many other telephone services have become available, e.g. answering and recording machines, fax machines, connections to home computers, and the like. There has developed a need to accommodate these different services by routing such calls to the proper devices, to screen out unwanted calls yet to have important calls be received with priority.
Telephone companies over the last decade or so have offered a service wherein an identity code, referred to as Caller Identification or CID, is transmitted after the first ring signal to a receiving telephone. The present invention is directed to use of the CID.
A U.S. Pat. No. 5,029,196 to Morganstein, entitled, AUTOMATIC CALL SCREENING, issued on Jul. 2, 1991. Morganstein describes a system for use with a private branch exchange (PBX) utilizing the CID. The Morganstein system can store CIDs together with destinations used in conjunction with a PBX. Also, the person or entity, associated with any CID, may be stored and displayed for use by the person answering the call. But, as distinguished from the present invention, the Morganstein system always goes off-hook, and returns this signal to the telephone office so that the caller hears the call being answered. Typically, when an incoming call is answered by lilting a telephone a load is placed on the incoming telephone lines (or wires). This load causes a 20 to 100 milliampere current to flow in the incoming lines. This current is sensed at the telephone office to indicate that the receiving telephone was lifted or answered whereupon the telephone office will stop the ring signal. Since the present invention routs the incoming ring signal, the receiving apparatus must remain in the on-hook condition or state. The present invention allows the receiving telephone or the automatic answering device to provide the off-hook condition. An advantage of the present invention is that there is no circuitry needed to create the off-hook condition (referred to herein as "going off-hook"), and that the routing of the ring signal is completely invisible to the caller--the caller hears only the ring signal provided by the telephone company. Another operational advantage of the present invention is that an incoming call may be terminated such as to confound the caller by routing the incoming ring signal to an automatic answering device. The automatic answering device will go off-hook, the present invention detects the off-hook signal, waits for a second or so, and then breaks the connection to the incoming telephone lines, thus going quickly on-hook to terminating the call. To the caller it will sound as if a receiver was lifted and immediately replaced. These advantageous operations and conditions are not disclosed or suggested by Morganstein.
Another prior art patent, U.S. Pat. No. 4,266,098 to Novak, entitled, DEVICE TO AUTOMATICALLY SCREEN INCOMING TELEPHONE CALLS, DETERMINE THE IDENTITY OF THE CALLER AND PROCESS THE CALL ACCORDINGLY, issued on May 5, 1981. Novak's object is to screen incoming calls to prevent an unwanted call from coming through to disturb the called person. Another object of Novak is to prevent would-be burglars from determining whether or not someone was at home. The caller must input an identity code using the touch-tones on the telephone keyboard. If the input code matches a code that was previously stored in memory in the Novak invention, the system will responds as programmed. Such responses may include connecting the incoming call through to a telephone or an automatic answering machine or, if the identity code were not found in the memory, to return a recorded "ring signal" back to the caller. However, a limitation of Novak's invention is that it always answers the incoming call by going off-hook. The would-be burglar will hear a receiver being lifted, then he will hear the taped ring sound (or a taped message). In fact the going off-hook will be clearly heard and understood by virtually any caller, and is not likely to fool a would-be burglar. In contrast, the present invention is invisible to the caller. The present invention uses the CID that is determined and generated by the telephone company--the caller cannot fake, alter or interfere with the telephone company sending out the CID. An advantage of the present invention, when a call is to be terminated, as described above, occurs by the present invention providing the quick off-hook/on-hook sequence that will seem like the called person lifted and then replaced the telephone without time to listen to or otherwise determine any information about the caller. This will certainly confuse any would-be burglar as to the whereabouts of the called person.
Novak has other limitations, since the identity input must be manually keyed in. Novak provides an off-hook signal, and then determines what type of response should be accorded an incoming call. In this condition the caller is "into" the called system. For example, if the incoming call is connected via a modem to a computer system where other codes activate other operations, the caller can intrude further into the called system. The present invention remains on-hook while determining what type of response should be accorded an incoming call, and prevents the caller from further intrusion unless so programmed by the user.
In addition, Novak does not suggest the ability for: operation with multiple telephones; programming a sequence operation among multiple telephones and automatic answering devices; prioritizing calls; forming modes of operation; forming priority groupings of calls; relating the rings to the priority; and rejecting calls as in the present invention. Since the present invention routes the ring signal and does not go off-hook, the caller is not connected to the called system so it is virtually impossible for the caller to gain unauthorized access or otherwise affect the operation of the called system.
Another use of the CID is found in U.S. patent to Sarakas, entitled, CALL SCREENING DEVICE, that issued on Jun. 26, 1990. This patent discloses storage of security codes which are compared to codes input by the caller. The result of the comparison determines whether the incoming call is put through or not. However, Sarakas does not store telephone numbers, and does not disclose or suggest use of routing the incoming call ring signal to a programmed sequence of telephone receivers or answering machines.
Yet another prior use of CIDs is found in the U.S. patent to Figa et al., entitled, AUTOMATIC INCOMING TELEPHONE CALL ORIGINATING NUMBER AND PARTY DISPLAY SYSTEM, that issued on May 8, 1990. This patent discloses a display and call logging apparatus, but has no suggestion of sequential routing of the incoming ring signals as in the present invention.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a system to protect the receiver's privacy, and to prevent the caller from determining the whereabouts of the called party.
Another object of the present invention is to route the incoming ring signal without providing an off-hook signal back to the telephone company, such that the routing of the ring signal occurs before any indication of such routing is received by the caller.
It is another object of this invention to provide hardware and software to identity, incoming calls and to react to such calls by routing the call ring signal as the owner determines.
It is another object of the present invention to establish a priority routing of an incoming call to establish a number of modes for handling and routing incoming calls, and to route sequentially the incoming call ring signal to a variety of telephones and answering devices as the owner may program.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a password or passcode that will prevent inadvertent operation or reprogramming of the present invention.